Damage
by Proverbial Pumpkin
Summary: A blow to the head causes some... complications. Established K/Tohma.
1. Prologue

**Title:** Damage

 **Author:** Proverbial Pumpkin

 **Summary:** A blow to the head causes some... complications. Established K/Tohma.

 **Warnings:** Head injury, obviously. Not graphic.

* * *

 **Monday 8:45pm**

"Sakuma-san, get in front of me please."

We were hurrying, the three of us. We had to get out. So Tohma's calm, pleasant tone confused Ryuichi, who jogged a few steps to catch up to us. "Are we being normal or not?" he asked, concerned.

"Yes, act normal. But please, hurry up." We were striding past open restaurant doors, over street grates we didn't have time to side-step. Tohma pulled Ryuichi forward by the arm, forcing him in front of us. Ryuichi was arguably the most important of us and the most at risk if we were caught up to – no way was Tohma letting him trail even two steps out of his sight. The company car was on the ground floor of a parking garage nearby and I had the keys in my hand.

But behind us, a star-struck bar party had spilled out of the venue, following us, drawing attention from the rest of the street.

It had been stupid of us, absurd to meet outside of NG without closing the venue to the public. It's a Monday night, Tohma had said. We'll be like normal people, Ryuichi said. Nevermind that it was Tohma's job to flash about the money to secure places before Nittle Grasper steps foot into them. It was my job to know when a room was about to get crowded, before the crowd materializes. It was Ryuichi's job to wear a fucking hat in public. So really, we'd all screwed up.

Now there was a crackle of life to the weekday scene. We'd jolted a normally moderate strip of Tokyo into activity. Tohma and Ryuichi had been recognized, and it was too much to hope for to leave the place without the party – and god knows who else by now – shouting, filming, squealing after us.

Tohma looked over his shoulder and cursed. We were being followed by a _pack_. "Go. Go. Ryuichi, run."

It wasn't a contained stream of fans, no single current of smiles and camera flashes; we were the epicenter of a hazy disturbance. There was movement at the end of side streets. People ahead of us now were craning their necks in our direction. We were almost to the car, almost safe, but the street ahead was filling in ever so slightly with people, come out to see what was up. _Celebrity_ , that's what.

We each flung open a car door, Tohma in the passenger seat barking obvious orders at us. "K-san, get on the main road. Sakuma-san, get down."

The crowd had reached the parking garage; if the gates hadn't been miraculously open we would have been delayed. But I reversed out of the spot and we peeled out onto the street. Ryuichi made jostled grunts as he attempted to crouch low without unbuckling. It was too late for hiding, though; the crowd had definitely seen our car, and they were running.

It was okay. Let them. We were driving. Almost up to speed. Two lanes, four lanes. Wait, traffic? Fuck, fuck.

"What's happening?" Ryuichi said from the backseat, lying under the window level. "Why are we slowing down?"

We were behind four lanes of completely, utterly still cars. We'd been on the road maybe thirty seconds and now up ahead there were police lights. A barrier of some sort, a fraction of a mile ahead of us. A roadblock.

I glanced in the rearview mirror; not far back, over a hundred people had amassed at the edge of the road, and were already getting in the way of other confused drivers. If they got to us, if they got in front of us, we'd never get out. It would end in broken windows at best, and I didn't like to think about the worst case scenario. Celebrities had been trampled; fans had been run over in situations that started out just like this. There were a pair of cops on the right side of the roadblock; of course we were in the leftmost lane. It would be impossible to communicate with them, and no chance of changing lanes. We weren't moving at all. Behind us, cars began to honk. The mass of bar-goers and night-outers who had heard that Nittle Grasper was _just over there_ were running in our direction. They wanted a piece.

Tohma and I looked at one another, out of ideas. His hands gripped the seat edge as he looked back at Ryuichi, at the jogging fans less than thirty yards away. "We'll be surrounded until those cops realize we need help," I said. Tohma nodded, disconcerted. Antsy. He couldn't stop glancing back at Ryuichi, at his friend. I uselessly re-locked the doors. "Sit up and get in the middle, Ryuichi. You remember. If you see someone with a brick or anything that could break a window, cover your face."

Ryuichi let out an anxious whimper, and that's all it took for Tohma to fucking _activate_. I heard the click of his seatbelt less than a second before he flung his door open.

Oh hell no. "Tohma!"

Outside the car, he bent slightly and said "go around, on the curb – " he looked behind the car, saw the horde descending. "I'll get it clear. As soon as there's space, get him out of here."

"You think I'm leaving you out here?! "

The door slammed. He took off.

"Shit. Shit. Shit." I turned as sharp left as the Corolla would allow, and pulled out of the traffic. We bumped up onto the curb, and then sped forward. Stationary drivers to our right shouted obscenities. I craned my neck and saw Tohma making an efficient route towards the policemen manning the barrier. I'd never seen him run before; the man could _haul_. In the mirror, I could see a number of them had veered off after Tohma. The others were coming for Ryuichi.

I didn't see their exchange, never saw exactly how Tohma managed to order a set of cops to dismantle their own roadblock. Probably they knew him, or saw the single-minded, slightly tipsy crowd hot on his heels. My foot hovered over the pedal. The block gate slid to the right. Miserably slowly. I couldn't see Tohma. I inched my way in front of the closest car, whose driver threw something at our window. A cop jogged over from his vehicle and gestured me forward as the gate opened. There were excited pedestrians in everyone's way now, zig-zagging through stalled cars towards us, towards the right side where I'd last seen Tohma. A widening in the block, almost big enough. Almost…

"Hold on," I said over my shoulder, and floored it.

The side mirror scraped against the retracting gate – I'd misjudged that – but there was empty street ahead, finally. We were through.

Open road. Nothing but space, nothing but more and more distance between us and the crowd. Ryuichi turned in the backseat. "Where is Tohma-kun?"

I shook my head. It was a mess back there. A bottleneck trickle of cars following us, a congregation of people where Tohma should have been, where the cops, I hoped, were protecting him. Now that we were out, I felt like a human adrenaline gel. "I'll drop you off and come back for him. What was he thinking? How's he going to get out of that? _Idiot!_ " I needed to calm down; I still had to get Ryuichi to safety.

Ahead, the Tokyo street was normal. No construction, no manhunt.

"And what was that roadblock even _for_?"

* * *

 **10:42pm**

"Random license and registration check." Tohma's voice was his usual – so he was really okay. Well, sure, the police had no reason to lie to me, but it was nice to hear for myself.

I put him on speakerphone and laid my cell on the dashboard. I wasn't about to cruise into the precinct parking lot on the phone with only one hand on the wheel. "On a Sunday night. Figure. That was a dumb maneuver by the way. Getting out of the car."

"Sakuma-san was in danger. How much longer are you going to be?"

"I came as soon as you called, stop being a snowflake. I'll be in the parking lot in just a minute."

"Good. I just realized I shouldn't be on the phone in here. I'm probably scrambling their equipment as we speak."

"What kind equipment? Aren't you in the lobby?"

"Monitors, ventilators, that kind of thing. I'm in the infirmary. Mild concussion. See you in a moment, K-san."

* * *

 **11:00pm**

"A moment" turned out to be a lie. The police medic wasn't done with him, which put my nerves into overdrive while I sat on a wooden bench with a handful of others waiting for their own police business to wrap up. A beleaguered mother, a young woman with an enormous engagement ring. Finally I heard footsteps I recognized from an echoing hallway, and the door swung open.

Tohma didn't even move towards me; he strolled directly to the door and motioned for me to come along. "If you wouldn't mind driving me to the office, K-san," he said without preamble. A couple pairs of eyes in the lobby flickered up to me, then back down.

I followed him out onto the sidewalk, towards the car. He was moving altogether more quickly than a concussed person should. "Tohma, you can't go back to the office."

"Of course not," he said, getting into the passenger seat. "Take me home."

I closed the door on my side and, just before the light dimmed above us, got a look at his face for the first time. "Good grief!" An angry-looking bruise covered a quarter of his forehead, spreading out from under his bangs, by his left eye and inward across his cheekbone. "You said you were fine!"

He winced at my volume. "See there? That's exactly the type of response I didn't want to deal with in the middle of the police station. I _am_ fine. Could you please drive?"

Once more, I turned on the company Corolla and it hummed to life. "So… how bad was it?"

"Not very. You did good work getting to the front of that traffic line. Sakuma-san is grateful."

"Nevermind him. Did you…" I pictured Tohma trampled to the ground, pulled at from all sides by fans until somehow his head was kicked in. It made me feel sick. And it made feel like a failure in every capacity. I couldn't keep the tightness out of my voice. "Are you… hurt? Anywhere else?"

He looked over, a streetlight glow sliding over his bruised face as he considered me. "No, K-san." He sighed and looked forward. "The gentlemen acted fast when I told them Sakuma Ryuichi needed to escape through their roadblock. They recognized me, obviously. But it took a moment. By the time they got me to their police car, well." He was calm about the whole thing, impossibly settled. "I'm not entirely sure what happened."

* * *

 **Tuesday 7:45am**

The next morning I turned on Tohma's television set – large, flat screen, audio to kill for, and almost entirely unused –and left it on mute. With some hundred or two hundred people causing a commotion (okay, so it was _our_ commotion) on an otherwise slow night, I figured we'd hear something about it. And if the media did cover our mishap, Tohma needed to be ready to respond accordingly at the office. He already had a search alert for _Nittle Grasper traffic jam_ programmed into his phone.

I was fiddling with a clementine when I glanced up and saw Ryuichi's face, a still from a concert, on the screen. "It's on, Tohma," I called, unmuting. He came in in a silk-blend undershirt, stretching an arm through the sleeve of a white dress button-down.

We'd missed whatever trite introduction the anchor had given, and watched as the channel replayed an internet video, some senseless attribution captioned at the bottom. It was a fan video titled "Chariro" belonging to "MUSIXFAN2001," a phone recording of the evening before. We watched, fascinated and mildly horrified, as the shaky video showed our car stopping a ways from the camera, then blocked from sight by other vehicles and people. The camera zoomed in, while the cameraman ran forward toward the roadlock, and then zoomed out again to capture Tohma, getting out of the Corolla like an idiot.

"There, you see?" I said to Tohma. "See what a moron you are?"

He couldn't argue with me. The audio on the video was indistinct but loud – people were shouting. The camera angled towards the ground for a moment while the camera holder ran, and then we saw the car – me, driving Ryuichi up onto the curb. An unsteady pan right and there was Tohma again, surprisingly fast and agile between the waiting cars, and then halting in front of the cops, and gesturing to the Corolla fifteen yards away.

Now, I glanced over at Tohma, who was distractedly buttoning the sleeves of his workshirt and cringing. He'd seen himself on video over and over, but nothing like this. The camera caught movement from the police, short and fuzzy, and then some dozen of the fastest crowd folk were upon Tohma. Shouts of his name.

A low police car door had been flung open for him, and at precisely the moment he stepped halfway in, a woman's arm reached forward and pulled hysterically at his arm. Another hand scrapped at his jacket. He only had one foot grounded as he was yanked down, sharp and fast. His head hit the top of the police car with a sound loud enough for the camera to catch over the noise of the fans.

"Shit," I said, almost in conjunction with the video-taker.

Tohma grimaced beside me. "I don't remember that at all," he said.

On-screen Tohma made no move to catch himself. The woman relinquished her grip on him, and the police moved in, using bodily force at last. The frenzy seemed to have gone from most of the crowd anyway – knocking the lights out a celebrity will do that. The video ended.

Tohma turned off the television set. There wasn't much need for analysis. He'd been wiped out.

"Chariro," he said, "is a four-day music festival held every spring."

"What, here in Tokyo?" It took a moment to sink in. "That's why there were swarms of people out on Monday. Some kind of after-party. That's why the parking garage was open. Hell, we were probably in event parking to begin with."

"And that's why they were particularly… fervent, in getting close to me and Sakuma-san." He lifted a hand to his face, testing the pain gingerly. Tohma's injury had darkened overnight. He would need to stop by the studio and find a make-up artist if he didn't want to spend the whole day answering questions. "I think now maybe I was lucky."

"That's one word for it," I snorted. But it was hard to berate the man now that I'd seen the video. He'd probably saved Ryuichi from far worse. Strictly speaking, he'd done a good thing. "We'll just have to be more careful in the future, that's all. And I'm definitely keeping an eye on you today, whether – "

"That won't be necessary." Tohma was continuing his morning routine, tying a black silk tie with quick, practiced movements. His fingers fumbled once and resumed.

" – Whether you like it or not. You hit the body of that cruiser full force. You don't even remember going down. Why the hell did you end up at the precinct? They should have taken you to the hospital."

"Because I strongly encouraged them not to." He made an aggravated sound, his tie an unexpected skewed mess. He yanked it off, shook out once as though it needed punishing, and started over. He folded the thick tail more carefully across and through the back loop. "I'm sure they had actual problems to… deal with…" Tohma's hands had stilled, and he glanced vacantly down at the knot he'd barely started. He brought the tie end through an opening – the wrong move.

"Tohma, do you need help?"

"I don't…" He slowly, vaguely attempted to keep going. He'd made a mess of it again. Then he looked up, confused. "I don't know what I'm doing."

* * *

 **A/N:** Oh no, poor Tohma. If I can get my lazy self to write, this fic will be at least two chapters.


	2. Damage

**Title:** Damage **  
**

 **Author:** Proverbial Pumpkin

 **Summary:** A blow to the head causes some... complications. Established K/Tohma.

* * *

 **Damage**

He didn't forgive me for his needing help with his tie. I was forbidden from ever mentioning it and after we got in our separate cars headed for the office, I didn't see him alone again until after lunch.

We'd both had a full morning – a safety briefing on new "off-campus" protocols, with several pointed looks in my direction. A board meeting where I wasn't really needed, and where Tohma dazzled as usual. He'd earned some peace and quiet, so I wasn't surprised the door to his corner office was closed. I knocked. "Tohma?" Locked. The light was on inside. I hesitated for about two seconds. The master key was for emergencies, not for invading people's privacy. But if the head of the company was concussed, locked in and not responding to his source of sex, what else kind of emergency were we waiting for? I let myself in.

He papers were arranged carefully to one side, his head down over his folded arms. He was asleep at his desk. Nope, nope, nope. Not after last night, not after this morning.

"Okay, Tohma," I said, circling around his desk. "Any other day, but not today."

"…Hm?" He didn't open his eyes.

"I said, any other day." I lay a hand on his shoulder, shook him just a bit. He didn't move, and I began to run the back of my fingers along the side of his head, more slowly. "But not – "

I didn't notice he'd woken up until he bolted upright and slapped me away. Suddenly he was standing, glaring me down in anger. No, in a rage. "What do you think you're doing?" he said. "Touch me again, Mr. K, and see what happens."

"What? I was just – "

"You'll be on a plane back to the States _so fast_ ," he started, until I backed away and tried to wave him quiet. I hurried to close the door – almost closed. Something told me Tohma would not respond well if I didn't leave it ajar.

I strode back over and put two palms flat on the desk desk, attempting to talk him down. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? But let's not pretend you could deport me for no reason," I said, flashing a disarming smile. "I'm a national now, remember?"

That stopped his outburst, for the moment. "You're a – what? Since when?"

"What the hell kind of question is that?" I hissed, glancing back to the door and lowering my voice. "Since _you_ , you pompous womp. You drove me to the legal affairs bureau yourself."

He stared at me like I had two heads. He really did. His eyes flickered to his phone for a moment, like he was actually contemplating calling security, then back to me. And then I watched the strangest progression pass Tohma's face as he cast about lost for a moment, slowly came to himself, and sat back down. When he faced me again, it was with clearer eyes.

"Of course. I'm sorry, K-san. Did you need something?"

"Wait," I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Did you just… What was that?"

"I already said I'm sorry," he snapped. "Are you in here with an actual purpose or not?"

"Tohma, you just _forgot_ a year's worth of…" _Of us._ "I think I'm within my rights to demand you get checked out again."

"Denied," he said nonchalantly, but I wasn't an idiot. He was embarrassed. "You shouldn't have unlocked my door and startled me. Of course I was confused. I don't intend to discuss the matter further."

"This might be a real problem, Tohma."

"You may go, K-san."

* * *

He barely glanced up at me when I opened his office door the next time, before returning to writing and making no attempt at a pleasant tone. "If you don't have a reason to be in here this time, I swear I will _disband_ Bad Luck."

"Tohma," I interrupted loudly, and held the door open for Ryuichi who slunk in behind me, the bounce taken out of him by Tohma's harshness. That was fine. I just needed him to act like a normal human for thirty seconds.

"Oh," Tohma said, instantly gentle. "I'm sorry Sakuma-san. I didn't know you were here. How can I help you?"

"I'm here to agree with K," he said dutifully, "and convince you to go to the hospital." I sighed – I'd failed to explain that subtlety had a role to play here.

Tohma looked at me. "Really? You're going to take Sakuma-san away from his work for this?"

"He's not making me do anything," Ryuichi answered. "I just think he's right." He walked right past Tohma's desk and bent down to give him a hug. Then a tighter one. I crossed my arms but kept quiet. If it took Ryuichi fawning over Tohma to wear him down, I could stomach it. Ryuichi honest-to-god kissed him on the top of the head. "Your face is all busted up," he said solemnly. He traced the bruised area from Tohma's temple to his cheekbone. I huffed – where was _his_ deportation threat?

"Yes," Tohma conceded, "but it looks worse than it is."

Ryuichi was skeptical. "Do this," he instructed, poking himself in the cheekbone to demonstrate.

"I'm not doing that."

I started to regret my tactics as Ryuichi proceeded to lay his head in Tohma's lap, kneeling on the floor. "You got hurt keeping me safe."

Tohma visibly steeled himself against Ryuichi's cooing praise. "Yes. You should go back to work, now. Don't let K-san commandeer you again."

"I knew we'd be okay, in the car," Ryuichi continued as if he hadn't spoken, still lying in his lap. "I was scared but I knew. You always did take care of me." That got him a smile. A real one. Maneuvering Tohma like this had been a sort of last frontier for me; I was jealous. Finally Ryuichi said, "but I think, if your head is hurt, it must be my fault. How could I not want you to make sure you're okay? I'll feel terrible if you don't." At some point Tohma had started fondly stroking his hair as he talked. "I'll never forgive myself. Have you ever felt that? Felt guilty for someone getting hurt?" – Tohma's hand stilled – "It's sad. And scary. It's the worst. So really Tohma-kun, right now the best way to take care of me is to take care of yourself."

It was an infuriating thing of beauty to behold. I could never pull that off, no more than I could turn into a cocker spaniel. "Call him off, K-san," Tohma sighed, and gently pushed at Ryuichi to shuffle up from his lap. "You win. Let's go drive up my health insurance."

* * *

On the whole, Tohma's doctor was not impressed. "To begin with, you should have called last night." He was a brash man, an American who wasn't quite as reverent of Tohma as the rest of the world. He turned Tohma's head this way and that, barely acknowledging the bruise on the side of his face. He pushed Tohma's head forward and pressed, lightly I hoped, on the soft middle of his neck. Lawson was his name. I'd met him once and didn't like him. Tokyo was overflowing with world-class doctors, and Tohma put up with this guy because as a personal physician he was _technically_ the best, and willing to travel.

"What about…" Tohma gestured to his face.

"Irrelevant. A skin injury. Doesn't tell us much. Now, it so happens I saw the video of your stunt. Injuries of this sort are rare with non-athletes and with people of your age." Tohma looked mildly offended but let him continue. "So Seguchi-san, your symptoms are critically important in this case." The doctor had a chart out now. His eyes flickered up to Ryuichi, who was peeking around from the door to Tohma's evaluation room. "Um, is he with you?"

"Yes."

"Interesting posse." Like he didn't know damn well who Sakuma Ryuichi was. "Bleeding?"

"No."

"Tiredness or over-sleeping?"

"Yes."

"Blurred vision?"

"No."

"Irritability?"

Tohma paused and looked at me. I answered, "yes." He frowned and seemed to contemplate whether I really needed to be there.

"Headaches?"

"Obviously."

"Confusion?"

Again Tohma hesitated. "…Mild," he said, convincing no one. The doctor raised his eyebrows at me.

"Bullshit mild," I said. Not three hours ago the man almost ejected me for touching him. "He's forgotten things no one in their right mind could forget."

"Such as?" Dr. Lawson asked. He looked at me plainly. I could feel Ryuichi watching us from the doorway. Tohma looked disturbed; he definitely didn't trust me not to screw this up.

"Like… the half-Windsor," I finished lamely. "He's been using that knot for years and couldn't make it today."

"I see," he nodded to Tohma. "That must have been very distressing for you."

Tohma couldn't tell if he was being made fun of or not. "I may have also lost track of… people. Relationships."

"Your subordinates? Friends? Current or out of touch?"

Tohma's eyes flickered toward me, almost imperceptivity. "Family," he said, surprising us both, and then caught himself. "I mean… a cousin. That's all."

Doctor Lawson didn't press the obvious fact that he wasn't getting the full picture. "Well, you'll stay here for a few hours, probably overnight. We'll evaluate you in a few hours and then let you sleep. Can you stay awake on your own until the evening?"

"Of course," he answered with a martyred eye-roll. "I'm concussed, not a child."

"Tohma, you fell asleep on the way here," I said.

So it was decided I'd stick around until his evening evaluation. In the meantime he was given a room of his own and told to stay put. He was allowed to stay in his own clothes but made to sit upright on the bed, with me standing by. It was a simple room, nice enough for Tohma's money but nothing extravagant. "No work," the doctor emphasized before he left.

"What do I do?" Ryuichi spoke at last when he was gone. He'd been uncommonly quiet. Tohma's condition had staved off the part of Ryuichi that I sometimes wanted to clobber.

"Go back to the studio and tell Sakano-san to cover my meetings for me," Tohma said. "And Sakuma-san, to be clear, we don't want anyone from NG showing up here. You understand? Do not tell them I'm in the hospital. If someone asks, tell them anything else."

I spent the next hour or so sitting with him, making conversation just to gauge his responses. He knew what I was doing but tiredly played along. At one point he rested his head back against the hospital pillow and looked around the room for a clock. "Why am I not allowed to sleep, again? Surely if I were in any danger we'd know by now?"

"The fact that you need to sleep at 3pm isn't great." His bruise had deepened to a dark brown and purple. He was tired, and I felt sorry for him. "I honestly don't know, Tohma. That's why we're here. He said it was for observation." My phone vibrated on the table next to him.

"You shouldn't have that on," he insisted while I reached for it. "It could throw off their instruments."

"You keep saying that. Did you accidentally scramble someone's pacemaker as a child? The cellphone in the hospital thing is a myth." I checked the caller – Ryuichi. "Hello?"

"Is Tou-chan going to be okay?"

"We just got here. I'll call you later. Is Sakano okay handling the office?" Beside me, Tohma was plainly listening in. I stood up and walked away, toward the window.

"He doesn't mind. But he's very sad about Tou-chan being in the hospital."

"You weren't supposed to tell anyone that!"

Tohma looked at me, alarmed, from the bed.

"But they were all so worried! I thought since they're not allowed to see him I should at least tell them everything I knew. About things falling out of Tou-chan's rememory, and about forgetting his cousin. By the way, Fujisaki-san wants to talk to you. He seems worried about his job."

"For fuck's sake," I said, and hung up. Way too late, I made a calming gesture to Tohma, who could vault out of bed and back to the office at any moment if I didn't keep him pacified. "No problem," I lied, blatantly. "Everything's fine."

"I was right here for that conversation," he answered tiredly, looking up at the ceiling before letting his eyes close. "Now the whole studio will think I have some sort of… brain damage." He knocked his head back once against the headboard in frustration – a bad move. His eyes flew open, unfocused like he was seeing stars. He exhaled sharply and breathed in again, a short pained gasp. I shook my head.

"Tohma, you might. You know that as well as I do."

When the doctor returned, Tohma didn't have the energy to be high maintenance. He performed vision exercises and seemed to pass. He answered questions about today, about the day before, about nearly impossible details from years ago. Above all he wanted to sleep. I made sure no one other than family would be permitted to see him – and who did that include, really? – and finally, after a day that had felt interminable, I left the hospital.

* * *

The next morning I went to the office mostly for show, before taking Tohma a briefcase of clothes. It felt unnecessarily secretive, hiding his expensive shirts in an attaché, but as Tohma vehemently pointed out, there was no explainable _reason_ for me to have access to his home, his wardrobe.

I signed in and a nurse met me outside his room. "Almost perfect timing. Seguchi-san is awake," she said pleasantly. "But he has another visitor. Would you like to wait?"

A visitor. After all that business about keeping NG out? "Who?" I asked sharply.

"His brother-in-law."

"He doesn't have a brother-in-law." Not anymore. This was a point I knew well.

"Sir, they're quite famously related. He arrived a few moments ago. Seguchi-san confirmed their relationship. I'm afraid you'll have to wait."

"Like hell," I said. Tohma's quiet divorce from Mika was finalized eight months ago. If Tohma wanted to see him, fine, but Yuki Eiri was _not_ playing the family card. Not after years of blowing Tohma off, and not after Tohma was finally getting past that whole… situation. I opened the door without knocking.

Yuki Eiri was standing half-way between the door and the bed, his back to me. He turned rigidly around, frowning. Sitting upright on the hospital bed was Tohma. Crying.

I shut the door harder than I should have. "What did you do?"

"I walked in," Eiri said simply. He didn't elaborate at first. Tohma was in obvious distress, failing to breathe evenly. Tear tracks sheened his face, streaked over the discoloration of his left cheekbone. Maybe Eiri was perturbed seeing Tohma like this, but he wasn't about to take responsibility for it. "He was awake. He just…fell apart when I came in. I barely said anything."

I stalked forward into his personal space. "What did you say to him?"

"Would you stop talking about me like I'm not here?" Tohma said, his sharp tone undercut by a thick crack in his voice.

We both turned to him, unsure what we were dealing with. "I'll call your doctor," I said. He nodded. I reached for the corded phone next to him. "And Eiri, you should probably leave."

"No!" Tohma said, alarmed. "He doesn't have anywhere to go!"

We both stared for a moment. Tohma was rocking forward a bit, trying to figure things out. Like he knew he wasn't making sense, but he couldn't figure out what _did_.

I put the phone down and sat on the side of his bed. Eiri frowned at me. Oh, like _I_ didn't have a right to be there? I tried to ignore him. "Tohma… tell us what year it is."

Tohma didn't like being spoken to like a patient. "I've been through all that with the doctor, K-san. Please leave me alone."

"Do you know?" I pressed. Eiri stood by, aloof but interested.

Tohma refused to answer, or couldn't. So he knew his doctor, he remembered coming in yesterday, must have known I'd been there too. But something wasn't fitting the present _into the present_. He looked desperately past me to Yuki Eiri. To his small credit, Eiri didn't look entirely unsympathetic. He shifted his jacket to the other arm. "I just wanted to see how you are, Seguchi. Obviously you're not well, and obviously I'm not helping. I'll go. To my apartment," he clarified, "because I'm a grown person with a home. To be clear, I am not a child and we are not in New York City. Let Mr. Winchester take care of you." He turned and growled bad-temperedly at me, "so long as you are."

I stepped back and made a sweeping gesture to the doorway as if inviting royalty to pass. I was being petty. It wasn't his fault Tohma's skull had smashed into a police cruiser.

"By the way," he said, turning at the door and lowering his voice further. "If he stays like this… careful who you let in."

"Thank you. I suppose I won't bombard him with more fake relatives who lie their way in here, after all." I looked at him deadpan. "There's no one who can do more damage to Tohma than you can."

"You think you know more than you do, Winchester. And who's responsible for him being here in the first place?" He left.

Tohma rubbed at his eyes, disoriented and, now that Yuki Eiri was gone, a different kind of dejected. "Why was that necessary? Making him go?"

"Because I don't like him much," I informed him. "And more importantly because he's not good for you to be around and when you're yourself, you know that." I felt a text vibrate in my pocket, and swiped my phone on. "Speaking of distracting people in your life," I said, "Ryuichi wants to come by again today." He'd probably run straight past the nurses, visitor list be damned. Or else he'd adorable his way through. I looked at Tohma. "Yes or no?"

"Of course he can come." His face was still pink from his fit of emotion moments ago, but he sat up, took a breath, and slowly let it out. "You used him to get me here in the first place, K-san, you won't keep him out now." He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, carefully. Already he was tired - he couldn't have been awake more than an hour.

"Did the doctor say you could sleep today?" I asked him.

"Yes. You worry too much. And I'm not sleeping; it's just bright in here."

That much, I could help with. I turned the lights off, and sat on the edge of his bed in the late-morning natural light from the window. "I'm about to touch you, Tohma," I warned him. "Don't eviscerate me."

"I wish you'd let that go," he answered, which I interpreted as an invitation. I leaned forward, supported the base of his neck on his injured side with one hand, and placed two fingers against his other temple where I knew he got tension headaches. When he didn't flinch, I pressed down, feeling his pulse, distinct and throbbing. His pain was tangible beneath my fingers. Keeping his head secure with one hand, I slowly massaged his temple with the other, working the place where I knew – _I_ knew – the tension built the most painfully for him. Immediately, I felt the muscles in his neck relax, and his furrowed brow unknit a fraction. I kept going, fingers in a rhythm now, and waited for Tohma to shudder out his thanks. Which he did. I let the weight of his head fall safely on the pillow, and moved my hand to his neck. I undid one button of his shirt collar, spread apart the material, and leaned down to kiss his collar bone.

"Mmm," he smiled, complacent. For the first time since the accident, I had an ounce of control over the situation. For the first time since the day before, things seemed more or less the way they were supposed to. When he was fully asleep, I put my mouth over his throat, just to watch him turn his head slightly in his sleep and expose his neck. Hindbrain Tohma was more predictable than concussed Tohma. If I made my way downward while he slept, for example, I could suck him off for about half a minute, if I was careful, before he roused and started rocking into my mouth. And right now, with Tohma not right and no prognosis from the doctor and Yuki Eiri showing up where he didn't belong, that was a reassuring thought.

Outside a soft barreling sound told me Ryuichi was in the building. "Tou-chan!" he called from down the hallway. I hurried to intercept him, closing the door behind me. I made him take a lap around the hospital, just to buy Tohma some time. Under Ryuichi's oath of silence we eventually returned to the room together. I expected, or hoped, that wouldn't sleep long this early in the day.

But it felt long. We each sat in a cushioned chair, one facing the head of the bed where Tohma slept and the other at the foot. Ryuichi silently surveyed Tohma, whose face was flushed under the bruise after just a short spell dealing with me and Yuki Eiri and, admittedly, a headache that wasn't likely to go away any time soon. A nurse came with a tray of food, assured me his exhaustion was normal, and went away again, while Tohma stayed completely dead to the world. I flipped through a paper impatiently. Ryuichi crossed one ankle over the other knee, leaned back with his chin in one hand, and watched Tohma intently. I hadn't seen him this serious in some time.

"You okay there, Ryu?"

He nodded. "I do feel responsible, is all. I'd like to help."

"You could have tried _not_ telling his co-workers he was headed to an untimely demise."

"I know, I'm sorry."

"Yuki Eiri showed up earlier today and threw Tohma for a loop. He could have done without that, I think."

"What do you want me to do, hurl myself out the window? I said I was sorry," he said. Then: "…what kind of a loop?"

"Nothing to worry about now, I hope. It passed."

There was a sharpness to Ryuichi's expression I'd almost never seen, in over three years of working with him. I wasn't sure, but maybe he had his own strong opinion about Yuki Eiri. Or maybe he was just worried for his friend. I reminded myself, not for the first time, that it was healthy for Tohma to have someone dedicated to his friendship. Yuki Eiri had done a number on Tohma – or vice versa, I still wasn't clear – and so Tohma was especially grateful Ryuichi was still around, that much I knew.

"I'm going to go check with his doctor. He's sleeping an awful lot. Will you be okay?"

"Yes."

"If he's confused when he wakes up, if he says anything about Yuki Eiri," – Ryuichi's eyes cut up towards me – "Just tell him, I don't know, what year it is. Remind him he's lived in Tokyo for years now. Do you want anything, while I'm out?"

He shook his head and I left. I liked adult Ryuichi. I remembered why we worked well together. I asked at the floor desk for Dr. Jeremy Lawson and was told to wait. That was fine, for now. Tohma wasn't going anywhere, although a nagging part of me was afraid of him slipping into a coma.

* * *

"He had an accident, Mr. K," the doctor said to me later, with a dismissive wave. "He wasn't bludgeoned with a club."

"He keeps getting mixed up," I argued.

"Nine out of ten hits like these – hard but not life-threatening – end in a full recovery. Usually a speedy recovery, even if there are bumps along the way. You were right to bring him in, particularly since I can prescribe the right drugs for the pain, but let him sleep. He won't die off on you."

"Alright. Fine." I supposed that's all I needed to hear. As I turned back towards Tohma's room, however, he called briefly after me.

"More to your concern, however, I believe his going home soon will minimize the mid-term memory lapses. Does he have anyone these days, who…?" He trailed off. "Well, nevermind. That's for him and me to discuss. The point is, his confusion should be temporary. I haven't seen it in the twenty-four hours he's been here, and from what you've said it's contained to directly, or shortly, after he wakes up. He should have someone with him for those periods."

"He's asleep now."

"Well then, call me the moment he wakes up. Let's see if we can't get Seguchi Tohma home."

I thanked him, without much enthusiasm, and made my way back down the hall. It was true Tohma had been in and out of sleep in all manner of places since the day before. Home, the office, and now a sterile hospital room. Maybe staying put in his giant house, where we'd lived with a surprising degree of stability this year, would speed his brain along.

If sleep, drugs, and a familiar environment were all he needed, I could make that happen. Hell, maybe Tohma would wake up fine. I put a hand on Tohma's door and turned as quietly, as unobtrusively as I could.

Ryuichi's chair was occupied by Kumagorou.

Ryuichi was in the hospital bed, kissing Tohma.

I froze, my hand still on the handle. Nittle Grasper's singer lay propped on one elbow on his side, next to Tohma flat on his back. Ryuichi was bent forward with his mouth on his, slow, deep kisses that Tohma received passively, languidly. When Ryuichi cradled Tohma's head with his free hand the sound Tohma let out was light, and airy. He had not been awake long. I'd heard that tone every morning for months. Tohma's hand opened and closed over the sheet – not present enough to reach for the man in his bed, but attuned to his rhythmic movements. Tohma was not putting up the smallest fight.

Then Ryuichi's hand strayed downward over the sheet, and I slammed the door behind me. Tohma groaned, confused – I'd probably split what was left of his head – but Ryuichi only casually glanced up, back over his shoulder to me. "Oh, it's you," he said. He rested himself back on his side, as though my arrival was inconvenient but not worth getting up for. "What did the doctor say?"

"Up," I growled.

"And what did he mean by that?" He smiled, like he'd been caught being mischievous. Tohma was straightening up and attempting to brush his hair into place with his fingers – as though he were embarrassed to be found in a compromising position, but nothing more. I could barely decide which one to start with.

Ryuichi. I'd skewer him. "Up," I said, " _now_."

"Mr. K," Tohma intervened, "I'm not sure this has anything to do… with…" I glared at him, waiting as he trailed off. He blinked at me once. Then his brow furrowed, his eyes closed tight and then flew open again as he turned sickly pale. There it was. I watched as the world, the present suddenly fell into place for him, five minutes too late, and the burden of realization literally sapped his color away. "K," he rasped, looking desperate. "I…"

Ryuichi, oblivious to the real matter at hand, had swung his legs over the side so he was sitting on the edge of the bed, his back to Tohma. He was assessing me; I _watched_ him decide whether or not to retreat into the childish, impossible version of himself. "Tohma-kun was scared when he woke up. He was sad. You wouldn't know this, but he gets that way sometimes." He spoke plainly, forthright, while Tohma sat aghast behind him. "I know Yuki Eiri was here. And I'm sorry if it bothers you for some reason, but I know how to help Tohma-kun deal with it. So you can stop looking at me like I've done something bad. When I asked if he wanted me to make him feel better, he said _yes_."

My insides churned. Ryuichi turned back around to smile sadly at Tohma. "Almost like old times, right Tou-chan?"

Tohma looked up from him to me, defeated.

A small part of my brain reminded me of the mitigating factors – Ryuichi didn't know about us, and Tohma's head wasn't straight. Even now he was still trying to sort out his faculties. For the most part though, I wanted to ram Tohma's rattled head into the wall. Ryuichi was still seated on Tohma's bed, his hip touching Tohma's leg over the sheet. I didn't care if it was incidental; they were still _touching_. I seethed, "Ryuichi, can you excuse us?"

He leaned over and gently kissed Tohma's ear before getting up, to show me he wasn't intimidated. Tohma closed his eyes and endured it. Moments ago he'd let the man's tongue in his mouth. "Call me if you need anything," Ryuichi said to Tohma, like _he_ was prepared to protect Tohma from _me_. I closed the door behind him, firmly.

When I turned around, Tohma was out of the bed and moving hesitantly towards me – shaky on his feet after the forced rest, and unsure how I was about to react. "K-san. I can explain." He dropped his hands to his sides. "…I think."

"Oh really? You can explain. Then by all means."

"I didn't… It wasn't like…" He quieted for a moment, and settled on the truth. "You didn't occur to me, K-san. I'm sorry. It felt like… so long ago. One minute I was alone and the only thing I remembered was Eiri-san leaving, and my brain was just… not working." He folded both arms over himself, holding his elbows like he was standing in the cold. "Then Sakuma-san was there. It was familiar."

"As good a reason as I've ever heard," I bit out.

He was frustrated. "I'm trying to tell you I didn't… realize I was doing something that had anything to do with you. You weren't even _part_ of me then."

"Part of you when?" I demanded.

"I don't know!" He sat on the edge of the bed, wasted. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

He glanced around then, and found his shoes.

"Do you think you're going somewhere?"

"I'm not arguing with you without shoes on."

The absurdity of that took me by surprise. I let out a half-laugh, angry adrenaline still coursing but relieved by the moment of ridiculousness. "The doctor says you should go home."

He halted tying his polished shoes, then slowly resumed as he thought that through. "Very well," he said.

"He says you should have someone with you for a few days, to make sure you get along okay."

Tohma nodded. "Yes, well," he said. "I'll speak with him about that."

I watched him for a few moments. It was hard to believe that terrible bruise was the least of his worries. "Nevermind, Tohma. I'll drive you. And obviously I'm going to keep an eye on you." I sat next to him on the bed, a foot apart.

"What?" he said. "After all this?

"If you mean that I should be pissed off, you're correct," I said. "But the fact is, you have to go home and take your medication, and try to get back to normal. And if something goes terribly wrong in the process, you're supposed to have someone on hand. I might hate you right now, but I'm not about to move out just so you can fall into a coma."

"I don't … that doesn't happen with moderate injuries."

"And our cell phones don't cause x-ray machines to combust, but you're still worried about it for some reason. Get your things."

* * *

 **A/N:** What is the matter with me. One more conclusion-type chapter coming up.


	3. Epilogue

**Title:** Damage

 **Author:** Proverbial Pumpkin

 **Summary:** A blow to the head causes some... complications. Established K/Tohma.

* * *

 **Wednesday 5:40pm  
**

He didn't look at me much for the rest of the day. He gazed out the passenger window, and then straight ahead towards his too-large house, and then he went upstairs when we got in. I listened from downstairs as he passed the room where his piano stood, pulling the door closed. I'd forgotten – he wouldn't be playing for a while, at least not until the meds evened out the pain a little. More quiet footsteps, and then I heard his office door shut. The sound of him giving me space.

Maybe he was right to. I wasn't sure. I wanted to help him, and I wanted to leave him to his own devices. I wanted to punish him, at the same time that I wanted to move on. I sat at his dining table, missing cigarettes.

It came down to this: Five years ago, Tohma wasn't using a half-Windsor, Yuki Eiri had some sort of emotional chokehold on him, and Sakuma Ryuichi was his star-on-the-rise fuck buddy. Or something. If there was any part of that I couldn't accept, tough beans. But, if only they hadn't looked so… I grit my teeth. _Natural_. If only Tohma had been minutely uncomfortable with Sakuma Ryuichi practically on top of him. It didn't bode well, no matter what genuine remorse he felt.

I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my recent history to the video of Monday evening. There we were, silhouettes in the company car with no idea we were on the edge of a mild NG clusterfuck. There was Tohma, throwing the door open and making our lives a lot harder. Tohma, so close to safety, then two – three – people with their fists around his clothes, another falling into him from the sheer current of the gathering crowd. I winced, again, hearing the thud, watching him go down. And I'd seen it more than once already. What did I think, that maybe it wasn't so bad? Or maybe I wanted to reassure myself that it was. Either way, it felt ghoulish watching Tohma's head get bashed on replay. I turned the phone off and tossed it on the table.

* * *

I knocked once before opening the door to his office. He was diligently, almost insistently at work. The discoloration along his face looked even worse in profile, when the healthy skin was obscured. It was deeply tinged purple, almost black at the place of impact.

"Okay," I said, "we need to talk."

He put his pen down. "Alright."

I steeled myself against his injury, against that sickening crack I hadn't been there to stop. One thing at a time. "First of all, have you and Ryuichi been… _involved_ , since I moved in?"

"Ah, so by us 'talking,' you meant you, interrogating me," he observed. But he pushed back and stood, gesturing for us to relocate. He walked down the stairs with me following, and pulled out the chair at same table I'd sat at earlier, before sitting across the other side. He was attempting to engage. He owed me that much. The house was quiet, but for the small creak in Tohma's chair as he folded his hands and waited for me, expectantly, to speak.

I drew a breath. "So, you and Ryuichi?"

"Of course not."

"Were you ever going to tell me about him?"

He shrugged. "If I had a reason to, I imagine, but not otherwise."

I was annoyed but a little reassured by that. At least he wasn't going to outright lie to me. "What happened between you and Yuki Eiri?"

He hesitated, then moved his hands from the table to his lap, and shook his head.

Okay then. "Was it sexual?"

Another pause, then another shake. "You can't expect my life story because of this, K-san."

"No," I said, "but you haven't just been _confused_ the past few days, Tohma, even though that's what we keep calling it. You've been emotional." He frowned. "And vulnerable." He scowled. I ignored him. "Is it possible Yuki Eiri's done some sort of… lasting damage to you?"

He weighed his answer seriously, lost in thought. "Quite the other way around, I'm afraid."

"But you don't want to tell me about it."

"Absolutely not."

He was resolute, and anyway I didn't entirely want to know in the first place. So I nodded. "Well then, here are my terms. One session with a therapist from you, and I'll forget about Ryuichi. Well," I amended, "forgive. I can't imagine forgetting that. Especially since I see him almost every day."

"Therapy! I couldn't possibly. I won't repay Eiri-san's confidence by discussing him with a stranger."

"Then discuss what you can. Make some of it up. I don't care. I just want to know if a professional thinks you're stable, to your core. Because I've never really believed you were."

"Well now you're just being nasty."

"Really!" I said, with a laugh. "Then explain how Taki Aizawa disappeared from the face of the earth two years ago."

Tohma's face went immediately unreadable; he didn't know how much I knew.

"I thought so. Tohma, work with me here."

He didn't answer at first. Then, "it could have adverse effects for Nittle Grasper if I'm so much as seen walking into another medical building – nevermind a therapist."

"So make them come to you. You can hide a doctor's appointment for one day if you can hide however long you were in the sack with Ryuichi." I was sorry as soon as I said it and he tensed up, ready to end negotiations. "Nope," I said, "didn't mean that." Great. I was dismantling my own leverage and being an ass at the same time. "I'm sorry."

"You would need to sign a confidentiality agreement."

For the love of god. It wasn't healthy to think this way in your early thirties. "Tohma, I'm not on some twisted business angle here. I want to help." He was unmoved, so I lifted a hand – _fine_. "Alright, whatever you say. I'll sign away my rights to blackmail you, if that's what you're afraid of."

"Okay then. I'll think about it," he said, satisfied. He held up a single finger. "One session."

"Good." I'd work on raising that to two another time. And just maybe, eventually, we'd straighten him out. "Now, before I drop the subject for a while… I have to point out that the last person you kissed was not me."

He faltered over his initial response, and looked away, embarrassed, like he was under some small duress. "I'm… I know. Would you be angry if I told you I'm not exactly up for… that… right now?" He swallowed and chanced a glance back at me. He really was worried I expected him to bend over the table right then.

"What? No. Jesus, Tohma, were you even listening?" The chair scraped along the hardwood floor as I stood up and circled the table, closing the distance between us and pulling him, carefully, to his feet. "Come here."

I was still miffed; it had not been a good week. But something about Tohma always seemed to extend my patience beyond its usual limit. I circled an arm around his waist and the other behind his shoulders, and tilted to press my lips over his. His body tensed just long enough for him to be sure I wasn't being careless, that I wouldn't rattle or hurt him, and then he relaxed. He felt weary in my arms, but raised his hand to the back of my neck, deepening our kiss in a way that was insistent and almost – this was new – grateful. There was a force to his hold on me that I couldn't possibly miss. Well, good. Whatever his road to recovery looked like, he was better off here, at home, away from around-the-clock confusion and with me on hand to ground him, as physically as he liked. He needed me. He needed _me_. I pulled back slightly; a few inches were all he allowed. "You see," I said. "That's all I wanted."

 **Saturday 8:30am**

Although he didn't say anything, Tohma was too smart not to have picked up on my routine since his release from the hospital. Three days in a row I carefully got out of bed before his alarm was due, and got in the shower. After 6am passed and I was sure he'd have roused himself from bed and registered the water running, I got dressed and came back in, by and by, to check on him. It was mostly selfish; I didn't want to be caught in his bed if he woke up one of these mornings out of sorts, and didn't think I belonged there. There was no precisely timing Saturday, however, and anyway I needed to man up. I woke up after 8 with Tohma sleeping soundly to my right, and waited.

He'd slept more in the last three days than in probably the whole week prior, stumbling out of bed and fumbling for his amitriptyline, and coming home to pass out after five or six hours at work. He'd waffled about letting me drive him at first, sure that it would raise flags around the office. But by mid-afternoon the sedative effects, the very ones helping with the pain, required him to either be driven home, dozing in the passenger seat, or to sleep precariously at his desk. And we weren't going through that again.

Today, though, he could get the cognitive rest he should have been having all week. I felt him rousing next to me in the bed and turned over to face him. He lay on his back, movement behind his closed eyelids as his brow furrowed. The bruise on his temple and cheek was still a sick-looking purple on its edge, but softening to a lighter brown in the middle. Now his face simply looked like he had lost a fight, and less like he was attacked with a weapon.

I slid back a bit, giving him space as his eyes fluttered once, twice, then closed again. I hadn't woken up with him since the morning after his accident, since before his memory had fallen in and out for two stress-filled days. Now I leaned up on an elbow, ready to leap out if he was spooked. I should have put a shirt on, just in case. He opened his eyes then, peering sleepily, blankly at nothing while his brain followed suit into wakefulness. His gaze slid downward, and over, and he was looking with half-open eyes at me.

I gave him a cheesy, nervous grin that couldn't possibly have looked genuine; the truth was I was prepping to defend myself. If he woke up in the late 90's, or god knows when, it would be a long day.

But then he blinked once and made an incoherent sleep-greeting at me. When I took a moment to assess the situation, afraid to be optimistic, he made a dissatisfied grunt at my failure to respond and inched himself closer, further into my side, bringing his covers with him. One more airy sound of near-communication, and he pushed his face into my chest, settling back down. I let out a breath.

"Morning," I said, to no response. "Are you getting up?"

He snaked an arm over me, as if he could fend off my noise with a bout of sleepy, uncharacteristic affection. It had worked before, but I was supposed to be keeping him on something close to a sleeping pattern. "Hey, come on," I cajoled him, rubbing a hand up and down his arm, now that the coast seemed clear. "You're almost there. And it's late."

That woke him up, in a manner of speaking. "Work," he said.

"…Isn't until Monday," I finished. "Tell me your age."

He cut me a sour but wholly unintimidating look up from his position between the pillow, the comforter, and me. "I don't need to do that today."

"It's not up to you. Age?"

He sighed and sat up on the bed, gathering the cover securely around his waist and reaching for his glasses on the nightstand. They'd helped his eyes adjust in the morning more easily the day before. "Thirty-four." He slipped them on and reached for his medication bottle. It was my turn to lose focus; Tohma sitting up, shirtless, peering through the thin silver rim of his glasses as he reviewed the directions, was a fully new image for me. Now that the bruise was healing and not a threat, it was its own source of fascination.

I forced myself to recall the sort of run-down the doctor expected us to repeat. "My age?" I said.

"Old. Can I take more than one of these?"

"Doctor Asshat said not to let you worm out of answering things," I said, although if he sat up any straighter I'd have a clear view of his upper backside, and let him do more or less whatever he wanted.

"Leave me alone," he commanded, without any real venom. "I'm fine. You're thirty-eight. You've worked for me for over five years."

"And who are you fucking?" I prompted.

His expression was of heartbreaking disappointment in me, but he answered, "you, K-san."

"You're damn right." When he was up to sex, I planned to make him say it over and over. "And what is a Nittle Grasper?"

"Wouldn't you like to know."

He seemed in order, so I relented. "Okay. I'm sorry your head hurts again. Do you need to go back to sleep? I can wake you in another half hour – oof."

Relieved, he'd set the pill bottle down and immediately resumed his position tucked into me, with one arm anchoring me where he wanted. Somehow I was hanging an inch off the bed, and behind Tohma was an expanse of space on his own damn side. I leaned my head back, loosely pinned into this tiny portion of the bed. I supposed it would do.

What mattered was that we'd made it through the week. From this angle, Tohma looked downright healthy, certainly had a clearer head, and a grip on me that barely slackened as he fell further into sleep. I remembered the tightness of his embrace over the past few days; he'd recover, was more or less already there, but he was still most confident when he could _feel_ me. I drew in a breath and exhaled slowly.

This would do just fine.

* * *

 **A/N:** The End. I hoped you like it! I know, I know, this was basically a 10,000 word distraction from Advice from Hitchcock. I'm sorry. ;_;


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